South East water firms have highest complaint rates - report

Three water companies serving the South East have the highest complaint rates in the country, a report has found.

Southern Water is the UK's most complained about provider of water and sewerage with Thames Water coming second, according to the Consumer Council for Water (CCW).

South East Water was the worst performing firm to provide water only.

All three companies apologised to customers, while CCW said it was "extremely disappointed and concerned".

Following water shortages and illegal sewage spills, Southern Water received almost three times the average complaints made to companies.

"We recognise that we need to do better at serving our customers and fixing their problems," the provider's chief customer officer Katy Taylor said.

Thames Water received 1.6 times more complaints than average.

The company said it was "working hard to turn around" its performance, having reduced the total household complaints by 28% compared to last year.

As a result, the report said complaints rose by 10% over the summer months.

This led to complaints, and "the manner in which the company compensated customers led to a second wave", the report said.

South East Water said it had seen the "accelerated impact of climate change" impacting day-to-day operations.

"During this period, we experienced record breaking weather impacts, a drought, floods and a freeze thaw," the company said in a statement.

It added that network improvements were "constantly underway" and it was investing £489m into infrastructure.

Ms Taylor said: "We are investing in video diagnostics, up-skilling our customer service agents and keeping our customers regularly informed when issues take longer to fix.

"While we are seeing early signs of improvement in the quality and speed we deal with their queries, we know we still have a lot of work to do and are committed to significant improvements," she added.

By Yvette Austin, Environment Correspondent, BBC South East

This report will be tough reading for Southern, Thames and South East Water. They have not had a good year.

South East had serious problems keeping up with demand towards the end of the spring. That led to a hosepipe ban, which was brought in just as the weather turned cooler and wetter, no doubt frustrating many customers.

The wet summer was also a problem for Southern Water as it led to more discharges from its combined sewer overflows, releasing waste into rivers and the sea. They have had some serious outages too.

The companies say they are working hard to improve their performance all round, but their reputations are damaged, and it's an uphill struggle to repair them.